


Put Your Head on My Shoulder

by Shewolf_of_highgarden



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1950s, Arya is a ballerina, Beware of plot holes, Catelyn does not take Tyrion hostage, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Marriage of Convenience, Multi, Ned still figures out the incest, Older Man/Younger Woman, Sansa plays piano, Strangers to Friends, dont look for historical accuracy, kind of slow burn, mostly for aesthetic, plot holes everywhere
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:33:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23220070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shewolf_of_highgarden/pseuds/Shewolf_of_highgarden
Summary: The honorable Ned Stark has been beheaded. Sansa Stark has gone missing or run off with a local ruffian or both. Robb Stark has married a social climber's daughter. Quentyn Martell has gone on an out-of-character adventure.  Whispers of dragons come from the East.The world is going to pieces and a select few try to hold things together.
Relationships: Arya Stark & Margaery Tyrell, Arya Stark & Sansa Stark, Arya Stark/Gendry Waters (mentioned), Arya Stark/Willas Tyrell, Catelyn Tully/Ned Stark (mentioned), Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister, Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen (eventual), Leonette Fossoway/Garlan Tyrell, Quentyn Martell/Sansa Stark, Robb Stark/Jeyne Westerling, Sansa Stark & Daenerys Targaryen, Tyrion Lannister & Sansa Stark
Comments: 21
Kudos: 34





	1. Hard Days Night

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone and welcome to what I'm doing while i practice social distancing. This is actually something i have been working on for a bit, but now seems a good time to expand it. 
> 
> Quick note:  
> \- Arya is 18 going on 19 when this starts, Willas is about 27 going on to 28.  
> \- Arya x Gendry is mentioned, but are in the past. They are not end game.  
> \- The time line here is the late 50s, early 60s but it really is for aesthetic more than anything. 
> 
> Thank you for reading and i hope you enjoy!

Catelyn has never been able to sleep in cars. They were too cramped and the noise never seemed to die down. For a light sleeper such as her sleeping within them were impossible. Even now, when she has been awake for the Mother knows how many hours, she cannot find it in herself to truly sleep. The nightmares she has when she can drowse help nothing either.

Instead she watches the Riverlands at night rush by her, though by now it may not be the Riverlands. They had been driving non-stop since Acorn Hall, so they should be reaching the Stormlands soon, if they are not already in them. On these old back roads there are no signs or streetlamps, so she can make out very little of what is beside her. From the backseat she can see trees and road illuminated by the headlights, but little else. It is no matter, she tells herself, the sun should be rising soon enough.

Adjusting herself in her seat again with a sigh and trying to stretch her legs a bit, Catelyn looks over to where Arya sleeps. Arya was able to sleep nearly anywhere. As a little girl she used to fall asleep on coats when Ned and Cat took the children with them to parties. When Arya was five, she had given Cat one of the fights of her life when she had done so. Ned and Cat had taken the older children with them to visit House Crewyn. The feast that night had lasted long and the Stark children had done their best to stay awake. Sansa had started to doze on Cat’s arm when she and Ned had decided to call it a night. Robb had been found easily enough and Sansa was already right there, but no one could find Arya. They searched high and low. Calling for her, making veiled threats should she not appear, making clear threats should she not appear, and then resorting to the promise of sweets.

The search was about to start outside, when the butler had rushed in. Arya had been found sleeping curled up among what was left of the coats. Ned had a good laugh and picked up their wayward daughter, who did not even grumble. Instead of waking she merely cuddled closer to her father. But then Arya had been a Father’s girl, just like Cat had been.

Now, though, Father is ill and Ned is gone and Sansa…Sansa…Catelyn shakes her head. She does not wish to think of her eldest daughter at the moment. She does not have the energy to even begin to try to understand what happened with Sansa. Of course, Cat does not believe the rumors. Her Sansa would never do such a thing, something else had to have happened. She’ll find Sansa and sort all of this out, but she has to deal with the matters at hand first. She wants to go find Sansa now, but she has four other children to think of now and the Reach to appease. As much as she loves her daughter there is little she can do for her now. Besides she has already sent loyal Brienne to find her, which is something at least.

Catelyn lets out a restless sigh and leans down to snag her purse. She rummages around until she finds her cigarettes and nearly groans. All gone. She will have to get more the next time they stop for gas. For now, though, Catelyn leans over Arya, trying to snag the girl’s school blazer from where Arya had kicked it under the seat earlier. If she knew her daughter at all, there was no doubt that Arya had a pack of cigarettes. All of those dancing girls smoked. Catelyn is sure that those dance teachers at the academy had those girls smoking a pack a day to keep some of them slim.

She grimaces when she has finally managed to snag Arya’s blazer and not just because of how wrinkled it is. An image of Lysa the last time Catelyn saw her, during all that unpleasantness with Tyrion Lannister. Her little sister had been in that big old manor in the mountains, a cigarette at her lips, and son by her side. At twelve Robert Arryn should have been outside playing or something, not stuck to his Mother’s side in a cloud of smoke. Lysa should have been less worried about getting slim enough to catch a man and more concerned about whether or not Cersei Lannister…Baratheon…whatever the fuck that woman was calling herself, actually killed old Jon Arryn.

Catelyn pushes Lysa from her mind, just as she did with Sansa, as she goes through Arya’s pockets. She pulls out lint and a note or two and some coins and finally a small silver case with the engraving of a wolf on top of it. It’s a bit old fashioned to be something that Arya would usually carry around. It almost looks like something Sansa would carry about. She can just see her eldest daughter with some vintage gold cigarette case with pears on it and flowers engraved into it. She cannot see Sansa smoking though. Then again, she could not see her eldest allegedly disappearing with the likes of Sandor Clegane or Tyrion Lannister when she was supposed to do her duty and wed Willas Tyrell, but here they are. Maybe Sansa did drink and not wine, no, she probably drank beer now. Maybe she even did as all said she did and _fucked_ the Hound. Maybe she _fucked_ both of them. Maybe she did what they said she did and _fucked_ her family over. Maybe she did what they said she did and _fucked_ her mother over.

Fuck.

The gods must truly hate her. This is what she got for trading Brandon for Ned so easily. Maybe she should have protested more, tried to have lived as a Silent Sister or a Septa. She knew she would never really last, but she could have tried. But who could blame her for not dwelling that union? Brandon seemed to be competing with Robert Baratheon for how many women they could sleep with before they were wed. Robert had already had a bastard or two before he was engaged to Lyanna and Catelyn had no doubt that Brandon probably had one as well. She had never guessed that Ned would have one. That was her first punishment, she is sure. Having to watch Jon Snow grow up in her home when he should have been left in Dorne. Ned has never told her who the boy’s mother was, but she can guess. Ned has taken this secret to the grave and the name Ashara Dayne still leaves a bitter taste in her mouth. It helps little that she can see nothing but Ned when she looks at Jon Sow. Her Robb looks very little like his Father, but Jon Snow was the spitting image. She had prayed to the Mother for a child to look like Ned and had gotten Arya. She loves her daughter dearly and would – and has – done everything in her power to make sure she has a good life, but she would be lying if she said she wished the gods had not made her look at Lyanna Stark’s face every time she looked at her youngest daughter.

Her youngest daughter who apparently smoked Visenya Slims. An odd choice for Arya, but Catelyn supposed it was what the girl could get her hands on in an all-girls school.

It had not been the intention to send Arya to an all-girls school, Cat and Ned were not their parents they understood that co-education was valuable. Still when they sent Arya off to her ballet academy and found it lacking any males, Catelyn breathed a sigh of relief. Arya looks to much like Lyanna for comfort and she had feared her daughter would face the same fate as her aunt. Or that she would live to tell the tale and return home the prodigal daughter with a bastard or two of her own in tow. Dancing would keep her focused and the school would keep her away from boys. Of course, looking at the crude “A & G” carved on to the inside of the case, maybe she was not kept away completely.

Still the school kept her on track enough that Catelyn could come pick her up and try to fix this mess as if she did not have other messes to clean. She had been glad to feel that Arya was secure that she never thought to worry about Sansa. Sansa had always been so sweet, so rule-abiding, that Catelyn had thought nothing of it when Ned had taken her to King’s Landing and she had done her schooling there. She thought she would find some sweet boy of good breeding there, instead she had found Joffrey Baratheon and then, apparently, Sandor Clegane.

Why none of her elder children could not do what she needed them to do, was beyond her. When Ned had been murdered by the Lannisters, Catelyn and Robb had to scramble to figure out what to do. Robb was to marry that Frey girl, in order to get house Frey on their side. Robb was barred from taking up Ned’s seat on the Council of Lords, but by allying with other houses they could force their way back into the council. House Frey had the numbers to push for a vote and stack the council enough to get the votes on their side. Of course, that would have been too easy.

When Catelyn had told her son of the plan she had made, he had looked at her uneasily and given her a weary smile.

_“I’m sorry, Mother, but I cannot marry her. I’ve promised myself to another.”_

Jeyne Westerling.

A fucking Westerling.

Of course.

Why go for a large house that while irritating to work with would have the means to help you when you can choose the no-name daughter of a social climber? Because Robb had to marrying the girl he dishonored. Damn him. Damn Ned. Damn them and their Stark honor. Catelyn loves her son, he is her first born and a shining example of what a good man of Stark is. She wishes, though, that he would have some Tully in him. She needs pragmatism and a willingness to do what needed to be done, instead she is stuck with Stark honor and hard-headedness. Catelyn loved her husband with everything she has, but she wishes his honor and idealism would not have rubbed off on the children so much.

Then, as if the gods were finally giving her a break, news came from King’s Landing. Joffrey had set aside Sansa for Margaery Tyrell and Olenna Tyrell seemed to have her eye on Sansa. Catelyn had sent word to the old crone immediately. A match between Tyrell and Stark was a wonderful idea, and one that would get Sansa out of King’s Landing. Did she trust them? No, not even a little bit. But if they got Sansa out of King’s Landing and to High Garden, Catelyn could make them wait for her to get to High Garden and go from there. She could help Sansa encourage her husband to do what they needed.

It was planned.

It was perfect.

Then Sansa disappeared.

_“They are lying, Olenna, I swear it. Sansa would never do such a thing.”_

_“Your devotion to your daughter’s purity is touching, but from all I hear no one but Little Finger is speaking against the story.”_

“ _There must be something we can do…send out search parties!”_

_“Yes, but what if the girl is never found? Shall I make Willas wait forever? He is very distraught over the news.”_

_“I understand how upsetting this news is. I remember when my Brandon was lost, but I still waited for conformation.”_

_“Yes, but we all said Brandon Stark was dead, not that he ran off with some hired ruffian.”_

Catelyn cranks the window down after lighting the cigarette. She admits that she finds them soothing, but she simply cannot abide the smell of them. Outside the sky is starting to lighten and she can make out the shapes of trees.

“We are going to have to stop for gas soon.” Harwin says from the driver’s seat.

“Of course.” Catelyn agrees. She is not really up to small talk now. She has too much too worry about other than making niceties. Harwin will not mind, of course. She has known him since he was a boy, his family having served the Starks for years. They have no need for small talk anymore.

She needs to save her words as it is for when Arya wakes. The girl has refused to speak to her ever since she picked her up at Acorn Hall. When she went to hug her daughter in the court yard she had been met with a statue who did nothing but glare at her. As frustrating as it is, Catelyn cannot truly fault Arya her anger. At eighteen she was not supposed to worrying about these things. She should be busy with her dance classes and friends and boys who carve initials into old cigarette cases.

_“You’ve another daughter, do you not?”_

_“I-yes…yes, Sansa has a younger sister.”_

_“How lovely. I had a sister as well. How old is she, this younger sister?”_

_“Eighteen…she’ll be nineteen in six months.”_

_“Mmm. Not terribly younger than her sister. An alliance would still be possible.”_

_“I thought Willas was heart-broken over Sansa.”_

_“He is young yet; he can learn to love again.”_

Catelyn has gone through two cigarettes and is watching the sun rise when Arya wakes up. She observes as her daughter tries to stretch. Arya has always been small for her age, but even she is restricted in the vehicle. It is a simple town car, so its big enough but after being in it for hours one starts to feel cramped.

Arya looks over to Catelyn blearily. She takes in the sight of her mother holding her cigarette case and her eyes snap back up to look at Catelyn’s face. Catelyn raises a brow and flicks her butt out of the car window and rolling it back up. She is in no mood to argue about smoking, she would much rather have a pleasant conversation. Or at least one that does not result in a screaming match.

“Good morning, Arya.”

When it becomes apparent that Catelyn is not going to say anything else, Arya turns her attention elsewhere. She looks out all of the windows, even twisting to look out the back one before sitting back down. She is sitting properly for a maybe a second when she lunges forward, shoving her head next to Harwin’s.

“Where are we?”

“Arya, sit down properly.” Catelyn sighs, pulling on the back of her daughter’s blouse.

“We are just entering Stony Sept, Lady Arya.”

Arya grumbles at the use of titles before turning her attention back to Harwin, “I’m hungry.”

“We are stopping for gas soon, Lady Arya.”

“We will get a break while in Stony Sept. When you see somewhere to eat, pull over Harwin.”

It turns out that the only place open in Stony Sept this early is a small diner. While Harwin goes to find gas and his own breakfast (and a pack of Gloriana’s) Catelyn sits across from Arya in the corner in a tacky orange booth with sinking vinyl cushions. Cat tries to rub out a spot on the table with a napkin as she waits for coffee. The coffee is not very good, but at least it is coffee.

“I want pancakes.” Arya says, setting her menu aside.

“Is that wise? You are about to start with a new company, you do not want to change your meals too much.” Catelyn advises, setting her coffee aside. Pancakes do sound good, but she is right. Arya should stick to the diet that Acorn Hall had her eat, and Cat should stick to her own diet. A grapefruit for her and eggs and dry toast for Arya.

“If you cared so much about my dancing then you should have left me at Acorn Hall.”

“You are eighteen, Arya, you were graduating in a few months’ time anyway. You can finish up the academics in the Reach.”

Her words of reasonability fall on deaf ears.

Arya turns to the waitress with a grin, “I’ll have a stack of chocolate chip pancakes, extra butter and syrup.”

She sends a smirk her mother’s way as she hands back the menu to the waitress. Catelyn is half tempted to give in and order the Riverland toast she has been eyeing, but she should be a good example for Arya.

“A grapefruit and dry toast, please.”

Once the waitress is gone, Catelyn turns back to her daughter.

“You shouldn’t ruin your dancing just to spite me. What happens when you meet your new troop and you are out of shape? They will think you are not taking this seriously.”

“They already think I’m not taking this seriously,” Arya snaps.

“You cannot know that, Arya.”

“I can. I didn’t audition for it. I didn’t train with them. Olenna Tyrell snapped her fingers and placed me there. I didn’t earn it.”

“Arya,’ Cat says trying for an even reasonable tone, ‘It is better than not dancing at all, isn’t it?”

Arya rolls her eyes and rests her chin in the palm of her hand. Apparently, they are going back the silent treatment. Catelyn holds back a sigh. She wants to shake Arya and tell her to get it together, that this isn’t Cat’s fault. If Arya wants someone to blame, she can look to Robb or Sansa or Cersei or Joffrey or Ned for getting assassinated and leaving them all in this mess. She wants to tell to Arya to stop being so selfish. At least she has Catelyn beside her, Bran and Rickon are still at Winterfell all alone since Robb is still in the Riverland’s trying to get men to push his cause or demand justice for the killing of his father.

As soon as the thought comes, Cat feels a wave of guilt come over her. Arya did not have to agree to this, not really. She was a woman grown, she could have denied her mother, could have stayed at Acorn Hall. Arya is a talented enough dancer that Cat is sure she could have gotten a scholarship or sponsorship in order to pay to finish her studies. She is making sacrifices for her family, sacrifices that should never have been asked. A sacrifice that not even Robb could manage.

Family. Duty. Honor.

Arya makes not only House Stark proud, but House Tully as well. If Ned was still with a head, he would be proud of their girl too. If Ned still had a head none of this would be happening.

She wants to apologize for putting Arya in this position. It’s what Ned would have done.

But Ned is bones and Catelyn is not him anyway.

She doesn’t apologize; partly because she doesn’t even know how at this point and partly because she knows if she showed any weakness in front of Arya the girl would see a way out.

Instead she waves down a waitress and cancels the grapefruit and orders the Riverland bread with extra syrup and butter, all the while trying to ignore Arya’s look of triumph.

The world is going to the seventh hell, at the very least she can eat something she wants.


	2. Breaking Up is Hard to Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do do do  
> Down dooby doo down down  
> Comma, comma, down dooby doo down down  
> Comma, comma, down dooby doo down down  
> Breaking up is hard to do  
> \- Neil Sedaka

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!  
> So starting next week i want to try to get into a posting schedule, but I've had chapter 2 ready so i figured i would share it. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!

Arya’s first kiss happened when she was twelve and Ben Blackwood kisses her in his family’s Godswood under the large Weirdwood tree. She had been allowed to leave Acorn Hall for the weekend to be allowed to join her family at Raventree Hall for a feast being held in honor of Bryden Blackwood. She had spent her time at Raventree Hall running around with her siblings and Ben, Bethany, and Robby Blackwood. She remembers it cool in the Godswood and she had been upset that Mother had insisted she wear a skirt instead of allowing her to wear shorts like Robb and Bran and Rickon. She had been even more upset when Ben kissed her.

Their parents had laughed when they found out what had upset her. Robb had found it less than amusing and Sansa had called Arya a baby for whining about it. Uncle Edmure had joked that it meant that she and Ben were wed in the eyes of the Old Gods. He made jokes about them heading to the Sept until Mother had sent him The Look. That night she gave Arya an uncomfortable conversation about the dangers of boys who kiss nice girls under Weirdwood trees.

Arya loses her virginity when she’s seventeen in Gendry Water’s apartment above the garage he works at. She had been in love with him since she was fifteen and they had to take Catelyn Bracken’s beat up red Courser to his garage when the tire went flat as they raced to make it back to Acorn Hall before curfew. They had gotten to the garage late that night and it had already been closed. Gendry heard the commotion from that apartment above the garage and came to investigate. He had taken one look at them and one look at the car and let out what sounded like a moan.

_“What did you lot do the poor thing?”_

He had fixed their tire even though it was after hours and grumbled the whole time about girls who couldn’t take care of nice things.

When Elaenor Mooton asked Arya would say that it was his personality that won her over, which always earned her a strange look from those who only knew him in passing. Sometimes it earned her a strange look from those who knew him well. Those blue eyes had helped, of course. The muscles certainly did not hurt anything.

The stubbornness he possessed had been admirable at the time too. Now she thinks it might be the most annoying thing about him.

“ _Come on, Flynn, just put him on. I need to talk him_.” She most certainly did not beg into the pay phone on the side of a gas station outside of Bitterbridge.

“ _I told you he’s busy, girl_.”

“ _Bullshit. He gets a break every now and then, doesn’t he? Please, just put him on the phone_.”

There was a deep sigh and rustling on the other side of the phone. After a moment Arya thought he had hung up on her, but after a few more seconds she heard the breath that said he is back.

“ _Girl…look…just forget the boy_.”

Then he hung up on her.

Arya stared at the phone in her hand, tempted to beat the thing against the box as if it would bring the head mechanic back on the phone. Instead she patted herself down, trying to find another coin for the stupid thing. She’d try the apartment. She’d try Hot Pie’s (again). She’d call one of the girls to go talk to him. If she gets more than one of the Brakcen girls to go or Wylla, she knows they convince him of what a stupid decision he had made. She just wanted to say sorry, to say she’s changed her mind. Wanted to tell him that he never should have encouraged her to do this.

It had been his plan, after all. Hers had been to follow Sansa’s lead and get out Westeros as fast as possible.

_“We should go to Braavos. I can still dance there and you can work on cars or something.”_

_“Arya…”_

_“Don’t ‘Arya’ me! It’s a good plan. We’ll go far away and everything will be okay.”_

_“What about your family? They need you.”_

_“They will be fine. Mother will come up with a different plan.”_

_“You’d hate me if you left them for me.”_

_“I could never hate you; I love you too much.”_

He looked at her for a long while, sitting on his bed. He looked at her so long she had started to wonder if he was in shock or something. True they had only really been together for two years, but that meant something. They meant something to each other. They would go to Braavos and live in one of those apartments overlooking a canal. Arya would dance and Gendry could do metal work or work on cars or whatever he wanted. They would forget all about the miserable land on the other side of the sea, the one that had caused her so much pain, of course she would still call Jon but other than that they could forget. Braavos would be beautiful. It would be perfect.

Eventually he had stood up and walked over to where she perched on the windowsill. He took her face between his hands and kissed her. Not the fast-hard kisses that came before sex or the quick chaste ones that came after he dropped her off in front of the gates of Acorn Hall. No. This one was long and slow.

When he pulled back to look her, her face still between his warm hands, rough from the work he did, her stomach dropped. He gave her one last soft kiss, this one shorter, and stepped back.

_“C’mon,’_ he’d said, _‘Let’s go for a ride.”_

She should have said no. Should have listened to that feeling in the pit of her stomach should have refused. She should have pushed him onto the bed and curled up together forever, ignoring the world outside. She should have never left that little apartment just like she never should have left practice to take a call from her mother. So many things she never should have done.

First Jon, then Father, then Sansa, and now Gendry. More people on a list labeled “Gone”.

“ _Arya! Arya, we need to go now_.” Mother called by the car, looking over the brims of her sunglasses. Arya was tempted to walk the other way. She could have hitch hiked back to Acorn Hall and beg Ravella to take her back. Or she could call Syrio, her first ever instructor, and ask him to take her on. She knew one or both of them would say yes to her eventually. They may disapprove, but they would not let her starve.

Father would be furious if she left her mother alone like that, though. Packs took care of each other; it was how wolves survived the winter and winter was coming. Father was…gone…so what did he care? Nothing he could do now.

Still, she slammed the phone back on to the receiver and felt herself walking back to the stupid car. At least once she got in Mother managed to doze off. Once she was asleep, Arya had convinced Harwin to pull over and let Arya drive. It had taken some work, but in the end the need for sleep had won him over just as it had for Mother. So, as the Stormlands race by her, Harwin snores in the passenger seat and Mother shifts in the backseat. Arya thinks she may have taken something to sleep so deeply, but she has no clue as where Mother might have gotten it from. Instead of disturbing either of her sleeping passengers, Arya fiddles with the radio. It’s not so late that there is nothing on yet, even if her options are limited. She settles for some crooner singing about a lost love. It reminds her of something Sansa might have listened to, one her secret pleasures. To poppy to be considered classical and cerebral.

_Remember when you held me tight  
And you kissed me all through the night  
Think of all that we've been through  
And breaking up is hard to do_

At the next stop she would try again to talk to Gendry and if that didn’t work, she would call Jon. Jon would want to talk to her at least. Hopefully he would be at the Wall. She had not been able to really get in touch with him after he went to the Wall. She sent letters, but they did not always go answered and when she called, she was usually told he had gone ranging or something. The first year she called as often as she could only to be told by more than one man that during their first-year new brother of the Nights Watch were not allowed contact from the outside which was completely unfair. At some point the brothers would automatically hand the phone over to Uncle Benjen who had be absolutely no help at all.

She had not even been able to get a hold of Jon after the news about Father had reached her. She’d had no one to turn to in her grief except for Gendry. Elaenor and Catelyn were good friends, but had no idea what to do in a situation when their friend’s father had been murdered because he was accused of treason. Gendry had been no help with the murder part either, but he understood her loss. Having lost his own mother, he could understand at least some of what she was going through. He’d taken her on long rides on his motorbike and held her when she cried and listened when she raged. It was far from perfect, but at least he was there.

_I beg of you don't say goodbye  
Can't we give our love another try?  
Come on, baby, let's start anew  
'Cause breaking up is hard to do_

He certainly was not here now. If he was, he would probably be telling her to slow down. He had always been a lead foot, but when it came to her gaining speed, he could be rather irritating. Whenever he complained about her driving, she would laugh at him. After all it was him who taught her how to drive. Robb was supposed to teach her on the break she had from the academy when she turned six and ten, but he spent that time backpacking with Theon Greyjoy. When she had gone back to Acorn Hall, she managed to convince Gendry to teach her how to drive using his truck.

“ _I didn’t think little ladies needed to know how to drive. Isn’t that what you have drivers for?_ ”

“ _Everyone should know how to drive, stupid. How else would I get anywhere?_ ”

It had taken months of work and a lot of arguing. They almost broke up on the side of the road trying to get her back to Acorn Hall one evening and they broke up for an entire hour one night trying to get back to his apartment. The make-up sex in the car had been pretty great, even if it took a bit of contortion. When Gendry had apologized for it, Arya had only laughed and reminded him of the perks of dating a dancer.

“Arya?” Mother asks groggily from the back seat, having woken up at some point.

“Up here, Mother.” Arya responds, glancing back at her mother in the rearview mirror.

“What are you doing? Where is Harwin?”

“He needed a break, Mother. I told him I would take over.” Arya explains. It wasn’t hard to convince him either. The man had spent so long driving that his body was craving sleep more than it desired to please Lady Stark. It helped that they were on the back roads and they really only needed to go straight. Harwin told her to go straight until she hit a town and then wake him up. She had yet to reach a town. What they just passed through was really more of a village.

Mother glances over to where Harwin sits, slumped over before shaking her head and sitting back. She is not happy about this, Arya can imagine the purse of her mouth, but she knows that it would be both unkind and unwise to wake the man. Harwin deserves rest, besides it is safer for all of them if he gets rest.

Instead of arguing with Arya, Mother sits back. Arya is grateful for that. If there is one thing that she and Mother are good at it is arguing. They had argued since Arya was a little girl and she formed her own opinions. Father was usually the one who got between them and smoothed things out, but he was gone now. Robb and Bran and Rickon were still in the North. Sansa was…well…somewhere that wasn’t here. That meant there was no one to stand between them. The last person to try was Ravella when Mother had come to pick her up from the academy and that had not go over well with either of them. Arya because she wanted a place to vent her anger and Cat because she did not need this woman to tell her how to raise her child.

Arya had been tempted to mention that Mother had not really raised her. Arya had entered the dance academy at Acorn Hall when she was ten and had lived there ever since. She would visit home for two weeks ever few months but for the most part Acorn Hall had been home. It had been hard to transition from Winterfell to the academy, but she had made a life there. She was surrounded by people with the same passion as her and she had made plenty of friends. Though some of the other girls like Catelyn Bracken had moved on, they had made sure to keep in touch.

She would miss Acorn Hall, even having a roommate. She had shared a room with Bethany Blackwood since she was a first year and they had stayed together ever since. Sleeping in her room alone would be new to Arya after spending so long sharing. As much as she reveled in her new found privacy she already missed Bethany.

“Who engraved the cigarette case for you?” Mother asks, turning the case over in her hands, studying it, startling Arya.

Arya wasn’t sure if the case was considered a nice one or not, but she had loved it. She knew that it came from one of the antique stores in one of the towns close to the academy, but she wasn’t sure which. Gendry had given it to her for her seventeenth birthday, claiming to be tired of her snagging his smokes because she kept losing her packet. Arya did not smoke that much, could not abide the taste, but she loved the case. Loved the wolf with branches that stared out from lid. She loved the A + G that had been scratched on the inside of it.

“No one.” Arya answers easily enough, though she is glad that she doesn’t think Mother can see her hands tightening on the wheel of the car.

“Then shouldn’t it be A + N?” Mother asks, Arya glances back in time to see an arched auburn brow.

Truly the woman never knew when to let up. Never had. Once Mother wanted to know something she never let up; like a direwolf going after a kill. What was it to her anyway, who the G was? Did it truly matter? Were they not on their way to High Garden to meet the heir? Mother is getting her way, there is no need to rub it in as well. Besides Arya wants to keep Gendry to herself. She does not want Mother to judge him without ever getting to know him. Him with his scowls and his chuckles and those deep blue eyes of his.

“I don’t know. I didn’t have anything to do with it, it came with the case.”

“You, sweetling,’ Mother says as she does the unthinkable and kicks off her shoes before swinging her legs up on Arya’s empty to seat to stretch out, ‘have always been a shit liar. Never play poker.”

“I’m good at poker.”

“Whoever you are playing with is letting you win or doesn’t know you well enough. You bite your lip when you lie, always have. Ever since you were old enough to understand when to lie you would bite your lip.”

“What do you do when you lie?”

“Me? I don’t lie.” Mother says as if the idea of her saying something less than true is silly.

Arya snorts at that. She would not say that Mother lies outright, but she is not always 100% truthful either in Arya’s opinion.

“I don’t. I’m an open book, darling, and I’m hurt you would suggest otherwise.” There is a smile playing on Mother’s lips.

“Oh…so I can ask you anything?”

“Of course.”

“First kiss?”

“Hmm…your Uncle Brandon, 1932 at Riverrun, next to the Red Fork.”

Arya wrinkles her nose; it is weird to picture Mother kissing anyone except for Father, especially an uncle she had only seen in fuzzy photographs. It feels wrong.

“Believe it or not, Arya, I was young once too.” Mother said with a laugh.

“First love?”

“Oh, no. Quid pro quo. Who taught you how to drive?”

“A friend.”

“The G?”

“Quid pro quo,’ Arya said in an imitation of Mother’s voice, ‘Did you love Uncle Brandon?”

Mother is quiet so long that Arya glances back to make sure she is still awake, though the light is nearly gone she can see that Mother is awake and staring out the window. It hurts that even when she is this disheveled and going on little sleep Catelyn Stark is still a stunner. What makes it worse is that it is well known that Catelyn Stark viewed her eldest daughter as more of a beauty than she was and though it was never said out loud Arya could guess that she did not possess the beauty of either of them. Jeyne Poole had reminded her of this every day with calls of “Horse-face, Horse-face” from the time she was eight and she did not stop until Arya was ten and leaving for the academy.

“In a way I did,’ Mother says, ‘It was my duty to love him, but we did not know each other well.”

“But he battled for your honor.”

“Oh, aye, he did. But whether it was for me or his pride is a different argument.”

“Oh.”

“Did you sleep with him?”

“What?” Arya is proud of herself for not swerving.

“This friend or G or whoever. Did you sleep with him?”

Arya contemplates lying. Though her Mother seems to view herself as a lie detector test, Arya is not so sure that she would know if she was lying. It has been so long since she and Mother had spent much time alone together. Arya spent most of her late childhood in the Riverlands at Acorn Hall and while she visited home, she had focused most of her attention on Robb or Bran or Rickon. Never mind the fact that her answer could lead to a fight. She does not want to deal with the fight or the judgement that comes with the admission. Does not want to hear about the shame she has brought upon their house or how House Tyrell will think less of them. At the same time, she has nothing to hide. She loved Gendry, still loves Gendry, and when they’d had sex that night, she had continued to love him. It was love in motion, like her dancing.

Fuck Catelyn Stark’s judgement. Fuck anyone's judgement. 

She isn’t ashamed of herself and she is not ashamed of Gendry even if he turned his back on her. She is wolf and is unafraid of what sheep think of her, though she is not sure Mother counts as sheep. Mother’s wolf status still in decision mode, Arya decides to go with the truth. Gendry is her secret, but she wont hide all of him. 

“Yes.” Her hands tighten even more on the steering wheel.

To her surprise Mother does not even flinch, doesn’t even seem to blink. She simply release a long breath.

“Has your moon blood come this moon?”

“What happened to quid pro quo?”

“Arya. Did your moon blood come this moon?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“Why?”

“Because,’ Mother says staring out the window, ‘sometimes things happen and girls are put into hard situations.”

And that seems to be that. Arya is not sure how to feel. On the one hand she is grateful that that is the end of that particular line of questioning. On the other it rankles that she has been reduced to this role. Her life is tied up with what she can give her new husband, the child she can bear him. She agreed to meet him, agreed to wed him to secure Robb’s position and to make sure that her little brothers are looked after. She never really thought about what that entailed. She never thought she would have to. She thought she would be in Braavos right now in a little apartment facing a canal, where she would dance to the music of street musicians and Gendry would do metal work. They would go to the Raggedy Man’s Harbor to get food and she would learn to cook with prawns and oysters and exotic fish. On hot days they would swim among the gondolas, splashing at the children in the canals on the narrow-cobbled streets. They would even travel around, mayhap spend time in Mereen and Pentos, seeing all there was to see. They would live together and laugh and dance and scream and cry and fight and make love and be together the rest of their days.

Until, of course, the universe fucked it up. Until Bran fell and Father was killed and Robb married some girl from the Crag and Sansa disappeared and Mother had come to Acorn Hall one drizzly fall morning life was so promising. Arya had looked to her future and was content. Now she looked to the future and felt…confused.

She’s not Braavos, she is right where she is supposed to be. Well. Kind of supposed to be. Really, she has only taken the role of someone else. She is her sister’s understudy as she has been since the day she had been born. Two years after Sansa Stark had taken her first breathe in Winterfell (and five years after Robb had seen the sun at Riverrun) Arya had entered the world. She had spent the last eighteen years trying to be more than simply her sister’s understudy, the second girl who was not quite right. She did not really play with dolls and was not overly fond of tea parties. She liked playing come-into-my-castle and monster-and-maidens and treasure hunt. When she started ballet, she had a surprising aptitude for it. She loved to dance. Besides Sansa was a talented musician, but not much of a dancer. Dancing allowed her to be something of her own.

She and Sansa had even chosen different parts of the country to be in. Arya did not have much of a choice as she had been sent to Acorn Hall rather than electing to go exactly. She had tried out for the school and had been willing to go, but the same could be said for the academy in the North. She had gotten into both and in the end her parents had decided on Acorn Hall. It was the better school and Mother was happy to have one of her girls growing up in the lands where she had been raised. Acorn Hall had been nice. She liked her teachers and had friends and sometimes Uncle Edmure would come to visit. He would take her to a little restaurant not far out of town that made the best chocolate milkshakes and fries.

Sansa had gone with Father to King’s Landing, preferring to go from Queen Alysanne’s Academy for Young Ladies to King’s College in the city where she could continue moon over Joffrey and play piano to her heart’s content. With Sansa in the Westerlands and Arya in the Riverlands they rarely ever saw each other. Phone calls and letters were also scarce. If pressed both girls could blame their studies. Being at the academy meant that Arya danced, but still had to take classes. Sansa did not have the dance classes, but she with classes and piano lessons she stayed busy.

It is with Sansa in mind that she thinks of what she wants to ask next. It is something that she has been dying to ask and yet it never felt like the right time. At first, she had been too busy not speaking to Mother. Not that it ever stopped Mother from speaking to her as if the woman had never heard of taking a hint in her life (Catelyn Stark did know when to take a hint, the issues was when she didn’t care to). Now, though, that Arya sits in the front and Mother in the back and it is now dark around them, she thinks she can ask. She wants to know why she is here, taking over what should have been her sister’s life. She wants to know what has gotten into the blessed Sansa the Dependable that she needs Arya to clean up this mess.

“Mother, where is Sansa?”


	3. Who's Sorry Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Ah ah uh uh  
> Who's sorry now?  
> Who's sorry now?  
> Whose heart is achin' for breakin' each vow?  
> Who's sad and blue, who's cryin' too?  
> Just like I cried over you"   
> \- Connie Francis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! So, it looks like Monday will be the posting day. A few things going into this chapter:  
> 1\. This is my first time writing Sansa's POV so please be gentle as i work on her voice   
> 2\. Dany and Sansa are going to bond and form a friendship, but not right off of the bat. Both have reason to be   
>  weary of the other.
> 
> Thank you for reading and all of the support!

Meereen is warmer than Sansa had thought it would be. In Westeros the weather had been cooling, the Maesters claiming that the long summer was coming to an end and giving way to autumn. Winter is coming she had told herself when the news came. Winter is coming and under the snow no lions would roar and the stags would starve. Winter is a time for wolves. The change in seasons give Sansa a hope she had thought she lost when Father lost his head. Winter could not come at a better time.

The heat being what it is, Sansa would appreciate if it came to Meereen rather quickly. Even though she spent the latter part of her childhood in King’s Landing she had never could stand blistering heat. In King’s Landing the Blackwater had brought some cooling winds, but that is sorely lacking in Meereen. At least, she comforts herself, at the top of the pyramid there is a breeze.

In the grand room where she, Sandor, and Tyrion were led were several plush couches and a bowl of strange fruit on a low golden table. What she really appreciates, though, is the large open window that takes up nearly the whole wall. Large light embroidered purple linen curtains flitter with the breeze. The purple drapes match the deep purple couches and Sansa finds herself both underwhelmed and grateful for the lack of opulence. She is pleased not to be reminded of the Red Keep where everywhere she looked was red and gold, from the red stone floors to the golden torches to the red stone high ceilings. The Lannisters wanted their presence known. Once, before the world fell apart, Petyr told her that her hair made her a fetching ruby for house Lannister, he had laughed that she fit the theme. When he told her, she had laughed and been pleased with how well she would fit with her soon-to-be husband, imagining children with hair of gold or hair of rubies. Now it half tempts her to dye her hair any color but the one she has.

Still, what kind of queen does not have a better ante-chamber? Cersei’s had been opulent. The walls, save for the one with the large window overlooking the Blackwater Wash. The windows consisted of three panels, the two on the outside contained multi-colored stained glass where the middle window and the largest was clear giving the best view. The stone floors were covered in plush myrish carpets the color of the arbor red that Cersei Lannister loved so much. Couches lined the walls there as well, though the color was clothe-of-gold that glittered when the light touched them instead of deep plum. Two wing-backed chairs, Lannister red, sat framing the large fire place. When Sansa had been a girl of ten and seven and had come with Father to King’s Landing, she had been so excited to visit the queen. She had relished her time spent waiting for her, tracing her finger over the flowers embroidered on the couches again and again. She had dreamed of when that chamber would be hers. She would hardly change a thing. She loved Stark colors, but grey did not shine like gold did in the sun.

In the end she did not have to worry about how to decorate when she was queen. It had all been a dream. Every thought she’d had for her future when she went to King’s landing was dashed. The dream of marrying Joffrey. The dream of the queen’s crown on her head, her title given to someone else. The dream of teaching their golden-haired sons and daughters how to play the piano and love it like she did, ones who even King Robert would pay attention to. All of it gone.

Not everything, she comforts herself, not all is lost.

Her fingers can still play, still know the ivory almost better than she knows herself at this point. True her pinky hasn’t healed perfectly from where Joffrey broke it, but it had healed. She thanked the Mother and Maiden and all of the gods in between that it had not been all of her fingers. She could still play. She was already composing what she would play on top of Joffrey’s grave.

She taps it out on her legs again and again and again, like a prayer in Morse code. She has been praying this particular prayer since she found herself on the ship to Meereen.

“Stop it,’ the Hound growls, ‘Stop that fucking tapping.”

“I do apologize if it upsets you, ser.” Sansa says calmly.

She does not stop, though.

Sansa ignores him and his glares and continues to study the smooth stone wall in front of her while tapping out Joffrey’s funeral march. She is not going to stop tapping when it brings her such comfort. She’s done it for longer than she can even remember. Not planning Joffrey’s march (though she wishes she had started it sooner), but the tapping.

Sansa started playing the piano at three, or at least that is how the story goes. She had sat on Mother’s lap while Mother played and then put her hands on the keys and pressed. She did not make music then, not like she did now, but she was so enamored of the noise that she would press the keys any chance she got. Sweet obedient girl she was, but she was often found trying to climb up to the keys. When she was four Mother and Father had sent for a private teacher who came three times a week to work with Sansa.

When Arya was five and put into ballet lessons, their parents had tried to combine their passions. More than once Mother had tried to get Sansa to play while Arya danced. It never went well. They could never agree on how the song should go. Mother never understood how they could not come together and put on little shows like she and Aunt Lysa supposedly had. Of course, she and aunt Lysa had done little skits, not really the same art forms of she and Arya. Mother could play piano, but Sansa could not see Aunt Lysa twirling like Arya. Father had only laughed at the squabbles and when people marveled at how they could be so different he would always give them the same answer; “Sansa is the music, but Arya is the movement.”

For her tenth birthday they replaced the old piano in the living room with a new one, a grander one made out of spiced wood. Sansa ran her fingers over the ivory again and again, not even playing just playing. She loved that piano and misses it. She can picture it in the great hall, waiting for her to come back and play it. In the behind it stood rows and rows of sheet music. Everything from the great singers of old to newer pieces to a few that Sansa had written herself. In most of the books one could find Sansa’s looping hand writing where she had made notes for herself.

Now, though, Father is gone, as is the little sister who would twirl in the corner and complain when Sansa did not play a tempo she liked and the beautiful piano she had so loved sits in a room hundreds of miles from where she sits tapping out a funeral march upon her knees, cool ivory replaced by warm flesh. There are no pianos around her at all. But that is alright. When all of this is over and her home is in tac again, she will have that piano shipped from the North or have Joffrey’s bone sent up there for the funeral. She would play on the piano she had played in her childhood and then she would throw different parts of him to different winds, thought it was really his head that mattered to her. His head would go over the Wall for the Wildlings to do as they pleased.

All of this, of course, depended on getting Daenerys Targaryen to agree to an alliance. It was a risk, but one that she would take if it meant getting her home back. Even if she was nervous about trusting a little queen barely older than Sansa herself. According to Tyrion she and Sansa had the same gap as she and Arya. As much as that gap made Sansa feel so grown in comparison to her little sister once upon a time, now it felt rather small. She wonders if this is how Arya felt when she pictured Sansa in a position of authority. Maybe she could never see Sansa as queen because she could not see someone as close to her age in such an important role.

Or maybe Arya could be an incorrigible brat who could never see anyone in a position of authority. The word “no” did not exist to Arya Stark.

Daenerys Targaryen had been Tyrion’s idea, though Sansa was willing to bet he had some help. There was no way they could have made it to Meereen at all. Never mind the fact that the Hound was not meant to be there at all. Tyrion, in a move that could only be described as drunken pity, had offered to help Sansa get out of the city. He was not exactly subtle about it. He was her history professor at the college and had written on one of her essays to meet him after class. In the stacks in an abandoned section of the library, Tyrion had whispered a plan to her under the guise of helping her to study.

“She is practically family,” he had told the librarian conspiratorially, ‘She was supposed to be my good-niece. Now my nephew calls her his favorite sister.”

Sansa is rather glad at how that did not sting. So many had thought she would be sad to be set aside for Margaery Tyrell, but she had been glad to be rid of Joffrey. Let him focus somewhere else, on anything except for her.

She had listened to the little man before gently reminding him that he wished for the impossible. She would not be leaving King’s Landing under the cover of night. She had her own plans. Margaery and Olenna had told her of their Willas. A kind handsome man who would love her and once they were wed Joffrey could do nothing to her. She would be Margaery’s sister in truth and all would be well. At least for now. She would worry about everything else when she made it out of the capital. She had been eager for Margaery’s talk of Willas. Of Highgarden and roses and puppies. She had dreamed of it. She had dreams of a large castle of light stone, one that twisted similarly to the maze in the gardens. She had dreamt of children who would play music and ride horses and grow strong. But they had only been dreams. Sandor Clegane had ensured that. 

How Sandor found out about any of these conversations she cannot say. What she can say is that he ruined all of her plans, may have ruined Tyrion’s. Be that as it may all they had now was each other and what a troop they made. A half-man, a mad king’s guard dog, and a traitor’s daughter. When Sansa had thought her life to be a song, she was thinking of one of love and glory, not one that recorded error after error and failure after failure.

“How bloody long do we have to fuckin’ wait?” the Hound barks, getting up from where he sits to pace.

Tyrion reaches for the decanter of wine that had been set out for them. One must marvel at how much wine that man can drink without boring of it. Sansa, herself, never really cared for alcohol of any kind. She drank wine, mind you, but only really for appearances. She did not want to be sitting in Margaery Tyrell’s parlor and be the only one not with a glass of wine in her hand. She wanted so badly to be one of them. Had come so close to being one of them.

“One never rushes royalty.” Tyrion says knowingly.

As if the rest of them would not know that. Tyrion was uncle to the king, Sansa the daughter of a great house, and Sandor had been at the Red Keep long enough to understand. They had all spent time waiting for Cersei Lannister or her son to grace them with their presence. After Father had been killed and Sansa called to the Keep, she could spend hours waiting for the queen. Never mind that she had class or music lessons or anything to attend to, her time was not considered valuable to the likes of Cersei.

That begged a question about this queen. Was she truly busy or was she making them wait to show her power? Letting them know that she could make them wait as long as she pleases. The thought of that gives her taps a bit more force.

She is about to bring up her concerns to Tyrion when the door to the chamber opens and one of the little cupbearers seen scurrying about the pyramid steps into the room.

“Mysha will see you.” The child tells them.

“Finally.” Sandor growls as they follow the little cupbearer.

As they are led through the pyramid, Sansa is rather grateful they only have to go up four flights of stairs. The walk up to the ante-chamber had been a rather long one and she did not relish the idea of doing it again. They pass servants and cupbearers and little pages. Sansa is surprised to see how young most of them appear, but none seem upset. Most of them seem rather cheery. It is a stark comparison to the expressionless Unsullied who line the wall.

Finally, they reach great doors with a harpy curved on to them. A man a bit older than Sansa with a plain face slips out the door and down the hall. Tyrion’s eyes follow him and she is sure that he, like her, has marked the man’s face. The way he moves it familiar, but before Sansa can ponder about it more they are ushered into the throne room.

Daenerys Targaryen is not exactly what Sansa was expecting. She supposes she was expecting a version of Cersei sitting on a throne more glorious than the one in King’s Landing. She expected a queen from a story. That is not exactly what she is given. Which is not to say that Daenerys Targaryen is not necessarily something…it’s simply that Sansa is not sure _what_ the dragon queen is.

Cersei was a rather tall woman while the queen before her is small of stature. Sansa believes she may be smaller than Sansa herself. Cersei had long thick golden hair that she usually allowed to flow down her back or held some of it back with a velvet ribbon or a carefully placed hair net. Daenerys hair is short, so short it does not even reach her shoulders. She does, Sansa grants, have a regal – if a bit restless – air about her. Daenerys Targaryen sits tall on her throne, studying them carefully with amethyst eyes.

The throne room is empty for the most part, a strange change from the packed rooms of the court of King Robert and then King Joffrey. Granted, she did not go often but she had been expected to attend more than once. She may have been allowed to continue to attend classes (heavily guarded and monitored) for appearances sake, but she had been moved into the Red Keep after Father had been imprisoned ( _For your own protection, little dove_ ). The lack of people, however, does not deter from the greatness of the audience chamber. Purple marble surrounds them, mosaics of harpies and other creatures laid upon them. The only real light comes from the tall candles that litter the room.

Daenerys Targaryen does not sit upon a throne, rather she sits upon an ebon bench, brightly colored cushions sit under her, young woman about Arya’s age with golden eyes stands at her side. The bench is not as large at the Iron Throne, yet all of the marble steps that it sits upon gives it the sense of something imposing, something that sits upon them all. Does Daenerys aim to assure people that she will understand them by sitting on something they would sit on or is she telling them that she is so above them all that she does not even consider how they may view her upon her bench? Mayhap it was because she seemed to be on the smaller side. Sansa thinks she may be smaller than the last of the dragons. Either way the queen clearly, she wants to make sure no one believes that she is someone to be trifled with, if she did, she would not have all of those soldiers against the wall.

“Her Royal Majesty Queen Daenerys Targaryen, Queen of Meeren, of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Khalessi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of shackles, and Mother of Dragons.” A voice cried out from beside the marble stairs.

A voice from behind Sansa responded.

“Lord Tyrion of Lannister, former Hand to the false King Joffrey. The Lady Sansa of Stark, daughter of the usper’s dog Eddard Stark. Ser Sandor Clegane, protector of the false King Joffrey. 

Sansa can live with Joffrey being called a false king, in fact she encourages it, but it takes everything in her not to clench her fists at what her father has been called, well cared for nails digging into soft flesh. It is not as though she has not heard him called horrendous things. She heard it all after his death. Everything from traitor to attempted usurper. Eddard Stark, once one of the most honorable men in Westeros, became a synonym for treacherous. To hear the sister of the man who sent her father off to war once upon a time insult him so is a slap. What does a banished princess know of Eddard Stark?

All the same Sansa dips into a curtsy…her small victory is that it is not a dip as low as she would usually would. Queen the woman may be, but Sansa still has to determine what kind.

“What brings you so far from home?” the queen asks, her voice has more force than Sansa had expected behind it.

“We have heard of your goals, your grace, we believe we share similar interests.”

“My interest is to take back my throne, a throne upon which your nephew sits. I do not see what similarity there can be.”

“My nephew is not fit to rule, your grace.”

“And so, you would dispose of him. Tell me, are all of the children of Tywin Lannister king slayers?” the queen all but hisses the end part.

Tyrion makes a face at that, and Sansa admits that it would be a rather fair question. In fairness to the Lannister brothers, no matter how much Sansa was pained to admit it, both of their actions could be understood. Aerys was mad and Joffrey the same. Aerys had killed Uncle Brandon and Grandfather Rickard and Joffrey had taken Father.

“You,’ the queen continues, ‘dare to come before me with the welp of the Usuper’s dog and ask me to aid you. To work with backstabbers…do you take me as a fool, my lord?”

“Please, your grace, we come to you as friends.”

“As your fathers were friends of my father. You say you would swear loyalty now, but what happens we return? When your blood line proves true? What about when you swore loyalty to your false king?”

“I never liked the little shit.” Sandor grounds out and Tyrion sends him a glance.

“Yet you served him, ser.” The queen points out, her voice tight.

“Not much choice there. Little bird,’ Sandor gestured to Sansa, ‘Didn’t have much choice in dealing with him either.”

Daenerys Targaryen turns those jewel eyes on Sansa.

“And you, my lady. What brings you here? Have you come to offer to be my dog like your Father was the Usperer’s?”

Sansa straightens and narrows her eyes, “I am no one’s dog, your grace. I am here because I want Joffrey Baratheon’s head and I’ve been told you are the woman to help me achieve that goal.”


End file.
